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Three very different takes on horror films

It’s a rough weekend for Sharni Vinson in the horror flick “You’re Next.”

The mumblecore-meets-slasher flick YOU’RE NEXT (R, 3 stars) was a curious case in that it created all kinds of buzz when it first premiered in 2011 but then sat on the shelf for more than two years before its release last fall to merely moderate box office (although at $26 million, it grossed 26 times its budget).

And while the film takes some time to get rolling, once the action kicks in, it becomes a wild, blood-soaked ride filled with all kinds of Goldberg-ian ways used to dispatch both the victims and the killers. It’s like the darker version of “The Purge,” and it’s a much better film for amping up the gore rather than trying to send some sort of message.

Quickly, things go wrong when Aimee’s boyfriend is shot in the head with an arrow. Soon, the house is under siege by invaders wearing creepy animal masks, intent on picking off people one by one. But they didn’t take into account that Erin is a bad-ass, having been raised in a survivalist cult in the Australian outback, giving her the skills and will to fight back.

I figured out the plot twist early on, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the over-the-top second half of the film and the comeuppance of some of the movie’s more unlikable characters (love the blender!). Vinson, arguably the most mainstream person in the film thanks to her appearance in “Step Up 3D,” shows a completely different side here, turning the typical horror heroine role on its head with a gritty performance.

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THE CONJURING (R, 2 stars) was a legitimate blockbuster, the rare horror film that connected with mainstream audiences, raking in more than $318 million worldwide. It’s also shocking because it received an “R” from the MPAA despite nothing happening. Just the notion of being scary was enough for people to freak out.

I have said this before – the “haunted house/ghost/possession” films usually don’t work for me. I’ve seen enough horror movies over the years that jump scares and loud musical cues don’t work on me anymore. So even though I was underwhelmed, I do appreciate the old-school approach used by director James Wan (who had a very good year, considering his “Insidious: Chapter 2” was a box-office success).

Loosely based on a 1971 case from the files of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the movie introduces us to the Perron family, parents Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Lili Taylor) and their five children, who have recently moved into a sprawling farmhouse in North Carolina. Immediately thereafter, strange disturbances start happening, ranging from minor annoyances to majorly weird stuff.

This is right up Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine’s (Vera Farmiga) alley, and they agree that an exorcism needs to be performed to help cure the land from a witch who killed herself on the property a century ago. But it might be too late, as Carolyn begins exhibiting the behavior of a woman possessed.

Don’t get me wrong, Wan knows how to stage a scene for maximum tension, and the actors are all game, but with the glut of supernatural flicks that have hit screens over the past few years, it’s a case of been there, done that.

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Horror-comedies are notoriously tricky to pull off – the genres are so disparate, that finding some sort of thematic connection will leave fans of one side unsatisfied. And even the pedigree of “Reno 911″‘s Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon can’t save HELL BABY (R, 1 star), a wildly disappointing misfire that has neither laughs nor scares.

Given the comedic talent involved both in front of and behind the camera here, this is particularly galling. I’m not sure exactly what Garant and Lennon were going for, but whatever it was, it ain’t here.

Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb star as a couple who move into a fixer-upper in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. They just so happen to have a friendly neighbor/boarder named F’resnel (Keegan-Michael Key) who informs them that their new residence is known as the “House of Blood” by the local neighbors – not exactly the welcome wagon they were looking for.

The pregnant Vanessa starts acting very strangely, so much so that two priests from the Vatican (Garant and Lennon) are called in to perform an emergency exorcism to save the day. This all has the potential to be funny, but man, I couldn’t find anything to laugh about. The plot is so threadbare, the directors have to resort to two scenes of people eating po’ boys to fill the time.

This is going to wind up being a weird little blip in the careers of nearly everyone involved, which is too bad, because it could have been something special. Hopefully, they learned a valuable lesson – mixing comedy and horror can give you nightmares.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.